Deeper
by KTHunter
Summary: The sequel to Twilight Child: there's more to the BRU than meets the eye! And sometimes the truth has a funny way of coming out on its own ...
1. Chapter 1

Deeper 

Summary: The truth has funny ways of coming out. Raven discovers that there is more than one way to trap her – and that there are new ways to escape. BBRae.

Disclaimer: I do not own the following items that appear in this story: Teen Titans, Superman, Batman, CADMUS Outsiders, references to the following music groups/stars: Evanescence, Queen, Enya

**Author's Note**: All stories in the _Twilight Child_ story arc take place after TT #20. It becomes Alternate Universe after that. This is before Mia/Speedy joins the team.

This is the sequel to _Twilight Child_. That story introduced an OC named Dr. Charlie Thunder Horse. He is a cousin of Raven's; his grandfather is her great-grandfather on her mother's side (of course). He is the descendent of Sioux medicine men. With degrees in psychiatry and archaeology, he searches for ancient Native American wisdom to use in his healing practice. He appears as a marginal character in this story, but he will show up in later stories if this one is well-received. In an effort to get to know one another better, he and Raven have started a regular correspondence.

In TC, he gave Raven another name: Dawn Child. You will see references to this name sprinkled throughout the story. Also, a new "kryptonite" for Raven was introduced in that story: Compound 27, which suppresses empathic powers for a bit (not to mention making the target rather disoriented). This is the "item" that she and Thunder Horse refer to in code in their letters.

This one is a little more light-hearted than Twilight Child, although there are some dramatic moments. I hope the humor works out. I also tried to include more of the team in this one, especially Cassie and Cyborg. Nightwing also puts in an appearance.

I am drawing some illustrations for this story as well. I will post them to my blog as I complete them: kthunter. . Let me know what you think!

Please read and review. I hope you enjoy the story!

Here are the stories in "Twilight Child" (so far) in order:

_Twilight Child_

_Deeper_

_Stair Luge Samurai_

_Coyote_

_Nadir_

_and later ... Dawn Child_

* * *

Chapter One – Flying

From the tower roof, she was just a blue speck in the distance. Three shades of blue – the sky, the sea, her cloak. But through his binoculars, oh, what a sight! Hood thrown back, still-growing hair the color of midnight caressed by the wind, face kissed by the sun. It brought to his mind the way that she used to look -- with those long, luxurious tresses that had fallen past her waist. He wondered to himself if she would try to grow it that long again.

_She'll have to braid it when she flies._

But for now it was fine, at least for a training exercise. He had never had to teach anyone to fly before, but so far all of Starfire's suggestions were working out.

He lifted his communicator to his lips.

"Okay, kiddo, can you hear me over that noise you're playin'?"

He observed one gloved hand rise to her face and press against her left ear.

"Yes, Cyborg," came the reply. "Your earpiece design is working perfectly. It even blocks out the wind. Thank you."

"Well, witch, I just didn't want you getting tangled up in the wires. I know how much you like your music when you fly. Are you warmed up?"

"One more pass. Then I will be ready."

"Be ready to start on my mark. BB, are you still on standby?"

He lowered the viewer to locate the green dolphin in the bay below her. He felt the late morning sun heating up the metal on his face.

"And lovin' it!"

_Gawd, I hope he's not trying to look up her dress. Again._

He'd been keeping an eye on the blossoming relationship between his best friend and his . . .

_If this keeps up, I will _have_ to step in._

But at the moment, Gar was where he needed to be. Even training exercises could be dangerous; Cyborg wanted Johnny-on-the-spot in case this newborn bird went into the drink. Again.

* * *

_Dear Thunder Horse – _

_Thank you for your recent emails and for all of your encouragement. They mean a great deal to me. Much has transpired since my last letter._

_I have shown Garfield your "prescription" for me, and he has made it his personal mission to cultivate my sense of humor. He has taken to the task with great enthusiasm. We have been watching comedies every night for the past month. Then he talks to me about what is humorous – I don't think we have ever talked so much to each other in our lives. I have never seen him more determined to make me laugh._

* * *

He heard Gar sigh as she executed a sharp right-hand turn by twisting her body around the axis of her waist with a dancer's easy grace. The tapered fingers of her leading hand folded into a loose fist. 

_Some day I'm going to have to have a long talk with that boy._

"Okay, Raven, good job on the rapid turns. We're done. Are you sure you're still up for that Hyk Mar maneuver? Starfire just showed you that one last week. You dunked yourself yesterday."

"I would like to try."

_Stubborn, hard-headed little . . ._

"Okay, then, ascend to the drop altitude and prepare to drop on my mark. Keep an eye on that altimeter this time. BB, proceed to the potential recovery zone."

"Hyk Mar? Sounds more like your hawking a loogie! What does it mean, anyway?"

"'Crash and Burn', the way she does it, kiwi-face."

"Gotcha, oil-breath. Beast-Dude to the rescue!"

"_Must_ you insult each other?"

"Just a little male bonding, Rave. Don't fret about it."

The tiny speck rode the winds into the wider blue.

* * *

_His next phase, however, is to get me to watch a comedy in an actual movie theatre. He feels that laughter comes more easily when it is shared. A week from this Thursday he is taking Cassie, Conner, and myself to the cinema. I was under the impression that this was simply a group outing until Cassie informed me that it was actually a "double date". She swore she would dress me up for it. Oh, dear. But Cassie has been such a good friend to me. I am clay in her hands, I am afraid. I think I have created the proverbial monster. I will keep you updated._

* * *

"Not the red dress. Anything but the red dress." 

"Yes, the red dress. You _have_ to wear it! You so have to wear it!"

"I do not have any matching shoes . . . "

"No excuses. You can borrow my red mules. You will be a walking _felony_ in that outfit. And you need a manicure after your last training exercise . . . "

* * *

_I have taken your other advice to heart as well. Music does indeed seem to soothe the oft savage beast of empathy. With the help of Tim's CD player, I was able to block some of the others' energies for a while. Something in the music, as you said, created some empathic "white noise", a temporary blind spot. Bart read somewhere that music alters alpha waves in the brain. Perhaps this is true? Perhaps these alpha waves play into empathy? After that, Victor constructed the largest-capacity MP3 player he could manage for me. The others gave me music to fill it. Now I go to sleep with my music every night. I have never slept so well. I believe they are as relieved as I am to get some of their privacy back._

* * *

"Okay, guys, the player is ready. She'll be back with Cassie any minute now. What CD's did you buy? C'mon, ante up." 

"She can have my Enya CD," Tim offered.

Conner snorted. "How about a playlist of all the Superman songs? I've got some credit at a music site."

"OK, good. No Bart, no _way_ are we giving her any Evanescence. Not only no, but _hell_ no. Are you nuts? Great music, but that's like Raven: The Soundtrack. That's the last thing she needs. Happy music only, people."

"But they haven't made any happy music since the eighties!" Gar exclaimed. "How about some Queen?"

* * *

_My gifts can seem both a blessing and a curse at times. But, as I found when you and I first met, being without them can be as frightening as being with them. With the "item" still missing, I find I must learn some ways of taking care of myself should I become so impaired in the future. I so despise being helpless. Why does it seem that every time the team goes out I find myself in such a spot? But ironically I must find some way to protect myself that does not conflict with the tenets of peace under which I strive to live. A pacifist that wants to defend herself. My life is nothing if not ironic. But I do have hope that my good friends will help me with this also. I will let you know what I find._

* * *

"You'd be proud of her, Dick. She's training every day. And not just on the new stuff, on the flying. She's relearning how to control everything." 

"That's good, Vic, but why do you need me? Mysticism isn't exactly my forte."

"Well, I've got a challenge for you. Do you remember the brief I gave you on the Twilight Canyon incident?"

"Yeah. Pretty rough on her, wasn't it? That running stunt was pretty . . ."

"I've already yelled at her for that. But she made the decision that she made. Cut her a little slack. At the same time, I think it shook her up more than she'd like to admit. She's asked me to help her find a way to handle a combat situation where her abilities are compromised. That's where you come in."

"She wants to learn how to fight?"

"It's easy to be a pacifist when you can just 'port out of the way."

"Well, the number one rule of defense is 'Don't be there.'"

"She's the queen of 'Don't be there', until something bad happens. She needs to be able to take care of herself even then, Dick. But remember she doesn't have a lot of physical strength. You're coming into town next week. Can you help?"

"I'm on it."

* * *

_As for your other question – I feel awkward even writing about it, but I feel I cannot leave it unanswered either. I must explain to you that I have spent so many years hiding what I feel that even though I am free I still have trouble speaking of what is in my heart. It is easier to bake a batch of muffins than to say what I feel. How do I tell him the truth?_

* * *

He watched her climb higher and higher into the blue. A woman in flight was a beautiful sight to behold. He glanced at the altimeter relay, confirming the altitude transmitted by the device strapped to her slender wrist. He stole a peek at the LCD of the custom-built MP3 player broadcasting back at her earpiece. He was satisfied that something he had built for her made her so happy. 

"Queen today, witch?"

"_One Vision_ was written for flight."

He grinned. "Whatever gets you through the night, kiddo. I'm just glad that earpiece is waterproof."

He thought he heard Beast Boy snort over the comlink, but he couldn't be sure. Maybe it was just the wind.

"Approaching altitude. Level out. Remember, arms to your sides for greater speed. Arms out to brake."

"Copy that."

_Funny, she doesn't look that high . . ._

"Ready . . . ready . . . steady . . . steady . . . drop!"

The sapphire dot cornered on a sharp ninety-degree turn, charging head-first for the waves below. He raised his viewer to watch her face, eyes squinting against the harsh air coursing past her faster and faster as it whistled past the microphone, mouth shut tight to avoid the intake of other small flying beings (again) . . .

"Turn on my mark . . . " He watched the altimeter clicking down, down, down, winding down to zero, but not fast enough . . .

"Holy _crap_! Too low! Turn, turn! _Turn!_ _Mark_!" His voice found its higher octave capabilities as her late turn was swallowed by a passing wave.

The only blues now were the sky and the sea. Static lingered on the radio waves.

"BB! Recover! Is she ok? You got her?"

"Other than a little wet and a whole lot deaf, she's fine, you tin-plated maniac. Rave, can you take us to the tower? Your – "

"—cloak makes a lot of drag." The radio voice echoed the actual voice behind him.

He whirled around to find an impossibly young empath brushing wet hair back from her face with one hand and rubbing her left ear with the other. One eye clenched itself closed in a grimace of pain. Beast Boy let go of her waist and shot him a glare that would have melted the Arctic Circle.

"Ooops. Sorry about that, Rave."

She exhaled a deep breath and unclipped the inundated cloak. "I believe the altimeter needs adjusting. I will try again tomorrow."

Cyborg chuckled and patted her on the shoulder. "That's my girl."

She did not reply, but her grimace softened into a half-smile he had not seen before. _No laughs yet, but I can tell he's been working on her. _He handed her a towel.

A lime-hued Saint Bernard shook a monsoon off onto him. "Gar!" Vic yelled. "Let's go have some lunch. We have a guest today – Dick's in town and he's bringing Chinese for us Weekday Warriors. Get some dry clothes on, darlin'. You too, pea-brain."

* * *

_Farewell, my cousin. Write soon. May all go well with your research. I still hope to visit before the summer is over._

_Dawn Child_

* * *

Author's Notes: 

I love all of the bands that I mention in this chapter, especially Evanescence. I just wanted to present how these characters would logically react to them in this particular situation.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans or any other DC character listed here.

A really nice illustration was done for this chapter by KryptoCow. The link to it is in my profile under the listing for "Deeper". Please go check it out!

Deeper – Chapter Two – To Gi or Not To Gi

The bedraggled pair sloshed into the elevator. He studied the control panel. Her gaze rested on the level display above the door. She offered him the towel, but he waved it away. She draped it over her head like a terrycloth hood.

"I hope Dick remembers you're a vegetarian."

She sighed and surveyed the puddles they were creating on the floor. "It seems I will have to mop the floor today as well. I keep turning too late."

"No one can fault you for trying. You do seem to be getting over your fear of the ocean, though," he chuckled.

"It does appear that the water and I are becoming fast friends."

"Is that why you want to learn this crazy trick? Trying to get over some fear of falling? Or water? Or do you just enjoy me catching you? It doesn't seem to bother you very much these days."

She cast him a sidelong glance. "The falling or the catching?"

He folded his arms across his chest and turned his chin to her. "All right. I'll accept the challenge here. The catching."

"Ever since Twilight Canyon, I haven't . . . minded." She gazed at the ceiling, her cheeks painted a light shade of crimson. Her smallest fingers twitched against her legs, whose outlines were clearly visible through the clinging damp of her uniform. He rolled his own eyes down to the floor and began to whistle a mindless tune with exaggerated focus.

The lift halted with a gentle beep. The right side of his green lips curled into a crooked smile as the doors opened. "Why, Raven, I do believe you are flirting with me."

They stepped in different directions, leaving separate contrails of salt water in their wake. He could hear water squishing in her boots with every step. Her right hand braced against the heart of her tattoo. _I wonder why she bothered with the elevator._ He called to her over his shoulder.

"Catch you later, then."

* * *

What he couldn't see was her fanning her face with her hand as she wandered down the hall. What he couldn't hear were her thoughts as she peeled a damp glove off her arm . . . 

_Muscle. Green. He's grown up. . . _

* * *

"Aikido!" 

"Bless you, Dickie."

"No, Gar, aikido, as in the martial art." He rubbed the bridge of his nose where his mask usually rested. "That, Raven, is the answer to your defense dilemma."

"What is it exactly, Dick?" Gar watched as Cyborg pushed the steamed rice across the table to the now-dry young woman sitting next to him. Her hair still carried the scent of salt.

"I think it's right up your alley. Basically, you use your opponent's own strength against him to deflect an assault. There's a lot of throwing involved, but very little punching and kicking. The students learn how to move from their centers, how to see things from their opponent's point of view – perfect for an empath. But I need to know . . . what kind of focus can you maintain? What kind of schedule did Azar have you on?"

She squeezed an elbow with her right hand while she reached back into her memory. "Time passed in a different way in Azarath, but it was the equivalent of sixteen to eighteen hours a day, except for holy days."

Dick exhaled a low whistle. "And I thought Batman was demanding."

"Remember that I was isolated from most of the people there. There was nothing else for me to do _but_ train. But very little of it was truly physical in nature, as yours was."

Dick's eyebrow arched. "So what else did you do besides meditate and learn how to tele—I mean, move between dimensions?"

"I read books. A plethora of books. Some of them from Earth, others written on Azarath."

Gar chuckled as he reached for his chopsticks. "That explains your million dollar vocabulary. How many times did you read the dictionary, anyway?"

"Which language?"

"I think you just made my point." He winked at her. "I have to carry one in my back pocket just to keep up with you."

Cyborg howled. "We'll get you into stand-up comedy yet, witch. So, you want to throw our girl around, Dick. Rave, do you think you can handle getting tackled by this lug?"

"I have been tackled many times already. That is the problem."

Dick pushed his seat back from the table. "Actually, I recommend going to a school, a _dojo_, for this. At least to start with. I know some aikido, but I think it would be better if you studied under an actual sensei to get the feel for it." He added, in a more brotherly tone, "I also think it would be good for you to study with other students. Just like in your high school."

"May I have the soy sauce, Garfield?" Raven scooped out more of Buddha's Delight #9 onto her plate. "Do you have a particular dojo in mind?"

"Oh, yes. I have contacts." Dick always had contacts. _Is it someone we can trust with her?_

"Don't you think she should practice in her uniform?" Gar asked. "Or will she have to wear those pajamas?"

"Pajamas?" Raven exclaimed, turning to Dick with widened eyes.

"Oh, Gar." Dick rolled his own eyes to the ceiling. "No, the outfit is called a _gi_. It's just a loose fitting jacket and pants. You'll be fine."

"I still think it looks like pajamas." Gar slurped lo mein noodles into his mouth.

Raven sighed deeply and rubbed the small of her back with her left hand.

"You do realize that it will take years of training before you might be able to use this in the field?"

"We all have to start somewhere." She lifted a mushroom to her lips with her chopsticks. She chewed and swallowed with the utmost delicacy. "I only have one question," she said. "Can I have a demonstration first? I would like to know what I am committing myself to before I go."

"Only if I get to use Beast Boy as a guinea pig."

"I only do karate as a kangaroo. Dick."

* * *

_Ouch. Maybe I should've been a guinea pig. I would've been harder to catch._

Her back was retreating from the gym, but he _had_ to say _something_ after colliding with the mat that hard.

"Don't forget _our_ training tonight!"

"Very well," her reply drifted in from the stairwell. _I hope she's not limping because of me!_

"What kind of training?"

"Um . . . humor assimilation."

"Ah. And how is that going?"

"Well, she'd enjoy the movies better if she'd quit taking notes. Other than that, we're getting there. A lot of shocked looks, some bug-eyes, and some yelps of 'Azar!' here and there, but no actual laughs yet."

"Girl just needs to let her hair down, Gar," Cyborg interjected. "Maybe she's just too uptight."

"Humor is about shared experience," Dick mused while he placed his mask back around his eyes. "Some jokes just aren't funny unless you've actually lived them. She was cloistered in Azarath for a very long time. I'm sure that didn't give her a lot of that experience."

"So you're saying, what, exactly?"

"Find something in _her_ life that she can laugh at."

"Are we talking about the same person? Not a lot to laugh at there," Cyborg replied, scratching his chrome skull plate. "She's not exactly Miss Happy Mary Apple Blossom."

"Consider it a challenge, Gar." He shot Cyborg a meaningful look. "_You_ could have fun at an actuarial convention. Surely you can find something that would be funny to _her_."

* * *

After Gar left, Dick Grayson's smile faded. "Something is blooming in San Francisco, isn't it?"

* * *

A/N: I really don't know a lot about aikido, so I apologize if I state any facts incorrectly. 


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans or any other DC character listed here.

Deeper – Chapter 3 Down Time

_My dear Dawn Child,_

_The research in Twilight Canyon continues. My wife is joining me next week to study some highly unusual glyphs that we found in the cave containing the cache that we found. Apparently, weapons were not the only treasure there. The markings are perfectly preserved, and we hope to translate them soon. They match other glyphs of unknown origin that I've seen over in Chaco Canyon. We can translate them, but we don't know we made them. I will send photographs in a few days. I think you will find them fascinating. _

* * *

Thunder Horse raised the flashlight to scan the markings on the wall. Translations were difficult but intriguing; the difficulty made them even more fascinating. He called over to his wife, who was unpacking equipment at the mouth of the cave. 

"Karen, you must see these."

"What do they say?"

"It will take a while to interpret the whole thing, but it says something about . . . worlds, coming, destroy . . . "

* * *

_I am happy to hear that things are coming together for you. I understand your concerns about "the item" being loose out there. I think it is wise to defend yourself in any case. Your abilities may enhance whatever training you get. Your friends seem very dedicated to you. I am sure they can help you out with this._

"Can you teleport through outer space?"

Her left eye popped open and sought out the source of the noise. Kid Flash. _So like his cousin, _she thought. _I should know better than to meditate outside of my room_.

"Bart, again, I do not teleport, I –"

"I know, I know, you move through yadda yadda yadda." He waved his hand over his shoulder. "But what about _space_."

"When we went to New Chronus with Donna, I did move from a planet to a ship across space, yes."

"Is there any place you can't escape from? Do you have to worry about moving from climate to climate? Or pressure to pressure? Do you have to go from like place to like place? That's what's tough about space, you know. Besides the cosmic rays and the extreme cold and the . . . "

She sighed a deep summoning-the-patience-of-Job sigh. "Why do you want to know this?"

"Well, think about it. You never know where you're going to end up. Or need a Plan B. Everyone's gotta have a Plan B."

"And yours is . . . ?"

"I'm working on it!"

* * *

_Do not worry too much about what to say to him right now. He may find talking about it as awkward as you do. But I have seen you together, and you do take a comfort in each other. Grandfather often said that the truth often has funny ways of coming out on its own. Like a fire concealed in a bale of hay, it does not stay hidden for long. I do miss his wisdom. When you visit, I will tell you more about your great-grandfather._

* * *

Karen Thunder Horse pulled her hair back into a ponytail so she could study the glyphs more closely. She brushed centuries of dirt away with a delicate brush. 

"Charlie, here . . . this reads almost like prophecy . . . _and he comes, the destroyer of worlds . . . _and something about bloodlines . . . stars . . ."

"Or maybe just a legend. This is going to take a while to translate, my love. I am glad we took the month off from the clinic."

* * *

_Have fun on your "outing". Let me know what happens. Please visit us soon. May the Great Spirit protect and guide you on your path._

_Charlie_

* * *

Cooling air swam around them like water. The last rosy rays of the sun winked through glowing clouds and melted into the sea to the applause of a croaking frog. 

"Bravo!" Gar shouted at the bay. He examined his companion with amphibian eyes. "An encore tomorrow night?"

"Indeed," she replied, glad for the company during her nightly ritual. She had had this company every night for a month. Some nights he was a cat, others a parrot, and sometimes just his human form. His shape depended on his mood. Now he was a frog. His mood was difficult to comprehend at the moment – a hint of honey-smoothness that always made her a little uncomfortable, that same smoothness she'd tasted when he first saw her in the--

She closed her eyes. _Forget about it_. She had exiled the dress to the back of her closet ever since that day. She absently rubbed her aching left knee. _I don't even know why he made me so . . . angry . . . _She preferred to not think about it. They never discussed it, but it was always there. Cassie had mentioned that it was an elephant in the room, but she wasn't sure what elephants had to do with it.

He hopped a little closer to her hand. "Wanna see me turn into a handsome prince?"

She offered him a vacant look as her only reply.

He sighed and shifted back to human form. He shivered like he always did when he made the transition from cold-blooded to warm-blooded. The white of his uniform appeared more pink in the fading sunlight. He scratched his head.

"Are we going to have to have fairy tale training, too?"

* * *

_O Thunder Horse,_

_My training has begun. Since it is the summer, I am starting with a two-week-long intensive training 'camp' that the school offers. I enjoy it as I have no other instruction in my life. It is so strange and yet so wonderful at the same time, to learn to control the movements of the body so exactly. The sensei is not at all what I expected. In fact, I am not sure what I expected in the first place. He is a gentle soul who reminds me of my former teacher in many ways – and yet he is different in as many ways as he is the same. He is incredibly patient with all of us. I am making many friends – it is easy to bond when everyone feels awkward._

* * *

"I have a treat for us tonight, m'dear," Gar said as he settled into the sofa. He held out a plate slathered with a fluffy concoction. 

She took the plate from his hand and sniffed it. She eyed it suspiciously.

"It's cheesecake. All girls love cheesecake."

"You can make a cake out of cheese? Is it cheddar?"

"Oh, Raven. You silly goose. It's cream cheese." He winked at her. "You can eat cheese, right?"

* * *

_I believe this training will be useful outside the dojo as well. They often loose a great guttural cry that they call a ki-ai. It is supposed to focus energy, which they call ki at this school, in a certain direction. I can see where an empath might find such a thing useful. Some of the other students here are self-conscious where the ki-ai is concerned. It must be their lack of early education in such matters. One classmate whispered to me that it made her feel 'silly'. When I whispered back that nothing could be sillier than standing in my pajamas downtown in the middle of the day, she laughed. I am not sure why; I was not trying to tell a joke. But she did relax. Her ki-ai is quite formidable now._

* * *

"So, which movie shall we watch tonight, my little Escape Key?" 

She padded over to the massive media wall on the far side of the room. She trailed her fingers along the spines of jewel cases, searching . . . searching . . .floating up the wall to examine the highest shelves . . .lazily scratching the underside of her left foot with her right toe as she thought . . .

He tilted his head as he studied her movements. It was not so strange anymore, seeing her in that hooded sweatshirt that had "Property of Titans Tower" emblazoned on the front. _Good old Bart. Those shirts were a good idea._ He was actually getting used to seeing her in regular clothes, doing regular things. Since he had first met her, she had seemed so unreal, so distant, that it was difficult to comprehend her doing something so ordinary as eating or brushing teeth or doing laundry . . . which of course she had always done_. Even daughters of demon overlords have to have clean socks_.

And the child of an evil force is all most people ever saw in her. But he saw what they didn't. He saw a girl who needed affection more than most people did; affection she had never gotten. A real girl. That's what he saw when they first brought her home. That's what he saw when he picked out the perfect room for her, the one warmed by the evening sun, the one full of the light that he knew she needed. That's what he saw in that red dress . . .

He grimaced inside. She hadn't worn it since that day. _Forget it._

He wondered how difficult it was for someone used to living on such a cosmic scale to bring themselves down to an earthly level. After spending so much time with her over the past few weeks, he knew how difficult that adjustment was for her. But he thought he had the key: they had similar problems. No one took him seriously. Well, except maybe her. But everyone else took her far _too_ seriously. And everyone else's feelings always rubbed off on her.

_If she is ever going to relax, we're going to have to relax around her, first. And I practically live with her, for the luvva Mike. It's my job to josh her every once in a while._

He was glad for Charlie's recommendation. And he was equally glad that he had promised to help her with it. It gave him a reason to laugh other than to hide his own pain. He wanted to use it to heal hers.

_At least I had six years of my own parents loving me. She had no love at all. It's amazing she's still sane after that. And on top of it all, deep down she thinks she's evil. But how could someone be that good and that bad at the same time?_ He tilted his head the other direction._ Nah. Not evil._

"Here," she said as she handed him the disc.

"_Space Trek: 2022_?" The register of his voice rose to the ceiling. "You want to watch my old show? You actually want to see me play Tork?"

"I have never seen it. There was no such thing as television in Azarath, so I missed its first broadcast. Show me, Tork."

_What a wonderful roommate. Definitely not evil._

* * *

_Garfield is trying so hard to get me to laugh. The last time I laughed seems like a lifetime ago; but I did laugh once upon a time. So much has happened since that I think I have lost the capacity for mirth. But I must admit a certain lightness of heart since our "studies" began. For his attempts, I am truly grateful._

* * *

She curled her bare feet beneath her. The creamy taste of cheesecake and his sweet-and-sour apple candy essence were indeed pleasant. It almost made her forget the embers of ache that had been burning a low fire in her joints all day. He was laughing at himself in his old costumes, and the sound was soothing. It reached out and drew her closer every night that she heard it. Tonight, she felt the warmth of his thigh against her bent knee. 

"Now, that was a bit of an inside joke, there, because the guy that played the captain, he always—"

"Inside joke?"

"Something that's only understood by people in the same group." He turned to her. "Or by only two people."

She arched an eyebrow. "Do we have any inside jokes?"

He grinned. "Like when I say: 'your cloak – never leave home without it.' That's our joke. Not everyone would get it. Or maybe this one – a Tamaranean and a Pacifist walk into a bar –"

She held up her hand. "I believe I understand now."

* * *

_He says that to truly enjoy yourself, you must lose control. But I have been taught the tightest of control is the only way I can live. So which is it – should one have control or not? It is very confusing._

_DC_

* * *

Her hand froze in mid-air. She grimaced as the ever-growing well of pain began to erupt within her. A grunt rumbled in her chest as she rested her other hand on the small of her back. 

Gar paused the show and reached for her free hand. "Bad pain day?" he asked. The laughter had left his eyes.

All she could do was nod and hug herself. Her joints ached and popped like Arctic ice breaking in the spring. Her spine cramped as if some bony hand had wrapped itself around her spine and was trying to rip it out of her.

"That's happening a lot lately, isn't it? Admit it. I've seen you bracing your back."

"Yes." She exhaled sharply.

He reached into a drawer in the end table with his other hand and retrieved a small amber bottle. He released her fingers and poured a few drops of the liquid into his palm.

"I was ready for this. Let me try something, my dear. My turn to be the healer."

He rubbed his palms together as the faint scent of lavender wafted over to her. He took her hand again and began massaging her own palm with his thumb.

"There's nothing wrong with you that a little TLC won't fix."

"TLC?"

"Tender Lovin' Care. Here."

She could feel his fingers probing the muscles of her hand and searching for the right points. She inhaled deeply as he found the spot that matched the agony settling into her back.

"Aaaaaah," she moaned.

"That's it," he coaxed. "Hold on, hold on . . ."

He leaned closer to her to get better purchase on the heel of her hand. She pressed her forehead into his shoulder and clenched her teeth. He continued massaging her hand in silence for what felt like an eternity, and the only sounds in the room were the low hum of the television and her cries of pain.

"I know it hurts, darlin', I know it hurts. Let me finish –"

He reached down to her back. He urged her shirt up and splayed his palm against her tattoo. The heel of his hand embraced the skin behind her spine. The mixture of the oil and the heat of his blood pumping through his limbs relaxed the muscles there. As the cloud of pain receded from her, her breathing slowed down. A low hum resonated in her throat.

"Better?" he chuckled. "I think if you were me, you'd be purring."

"How did you –"

"Research, my little Houdini. Just a little research. Someone's got to take care of you." He returned the bottle to its drawer with his free hand. "I just wish I'd thought of this a long time ago. Maybe then . . . " His eyes looked away ever so briefly. "Never mind."

_I wonder why I never thought of this. But he cares. And he understands._

_A little TLC. Tender Loving Care._

"So good to be home," she whispered.

She raised her head from his shoulder. Her forehead passed close to his chin, so close she could hear his pulse beating in his throat. He was not letting go of her.

_I don't want him to let go._

She hungered for that touch, just like she hungered for emotion. It was sun and rain on landscape that had been dark and dry for too long.

The scent of lavender with a hint of freshly watered canine bathed her face. A stream of green ran behind her eyes as she lowered the lids. There was the slightest taste of what she could only think of as affection on the tip of her tongue. That light, that perfume, that taste, was all she could sense. _He hesitates, but still--_ She felt his lips press into her temple and linger there. A finger under her chin turned her face up . . .

"Okay, Roy!" A ponderous weight invaded the other side of the couch. "Sounds like a plan. Gotta go now and see what Siskel and Ebert here are up to. See ya."

She felt Gar's eyes following hers to stare at Cyborg. He closed his cell phone and rested it on the coffee table. He leaned back into the sofa and grinned at them.

"So, amigos, what's on the tube tonight?"

* * *

_My cousin,_

_As I have grown older, I have discovered that the true magic of life lies in balance: of light and dark, somberness and gaiety . . . and control and frenzy. You must learn to_ c_ontrol the control. Keep it when you need it. Let it go when you need to be without it, for there are times when control separates you from that which you need the most. Control the control._

_CTH_

* * *

A/N: I don't know anything about glyphs, either. 

The infamous red dress incident is the one that appears in the GJ (current) version of TT #20.

The old series of TT mentioned Gar's stint on _Space Trek: 2022_ many times. The show had a prominent place in the _Beast Boy_ mini-series that was out a few years ago. I think that mini-series appears in the _Beast Boys and Girls _trade, but I'm not sure.

The New Chronus adventure that Raven mentions is detailed in the _Who is Donna Troy?_ Trade paperback.

A bit about the lavender:I've had a lot of questions from readers on this one, so I thought I would elaborate. Lavender's essentialoilis known for its healing properties. Here, Gar is not using it for its scent but for its ability to heal. It is often used in aromatherapy and reflexology for that purpose (in real life). However, its scent is so strong that I have to describe it here.CAUTION: I suggest you learn about aromatherapy before using it yourself.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans or any other DC character listed here.

Deeper – Chapter Four – Cassie's Masterpiece

_Shoes? Check. Shirt ironed? Check. Cologne? Check. Cell phone . . ._

"Sneaky way to ask her out, dude," Connor said while staring into the eyes of the television. He clicked the remote again.

Gar eased into his jacket. "It's a group deal, not a date."

"Of course it is. Cassie thinks so, anyway." He turned the blaring television off. "Good thing we're going out. Nothing on the tube tonight, anyway."

"What did she say to Raven?" Gar stared at his watch. "And when are they coming down? The movie starts in thirty minutes!"

"You know girls. She's probably curling her hair or painting her nails or whatever as we speak."

Connor leaned over the couch and sniffed the air. "Wuff. Do you think you've got on enough aftershave?"

A voice drifted down the stairwell into the great room.

"C'mon, he's not going to laugh this time, I _promise_. You look great."

"Here we go," Conner grinned at him and pointed at the pink blossom on the end table. "Look, you got her a freakin' _flower_, dude. It's a date."

"It's just a carnation . . ."

Cassie's voice was closer. "No, you don't need that shawl. I told you, you look _fine_ . . . yes, but Raven, they are _supposed_ to look at you. That's the whole point!"

"You're going to _love_ this." Conner waggled his eyebrows.

"Here we are." Cassie appeared around the corner with a great flourish of her arms. Alone. She sighed, then shouted to the hallway. "Rachel Roth, don't make me come back in there and get you."

"Look," Gar whispered, "I just did it this way to take the pressure off her, you know? I just want her to have some _good _memories. She has so few. There's no need for you guys to . . ."

" . . . to . . . "

His speech trailed off as she peered around the corner of the stairs. Her short, wild hair was tamed into loose curls that hugged her neck. Wide eyes were outlined in gray. Her lips were pursed shut. Cassie grasped her wrist and pulled the rest of her forward into full view.

That dress. That _red_ dress. The one that had really gotten his attention before. The one that wore _her_. The one that made him see her as something other than just a teammate. The one that took her out of the realm of the mystical and placed her in the real world. The one that made him not quite sure how to behave.

The one that had gotten him thrown out of her room when he couldn't keep his big damn mouth shut.

He stood there, rooted to the spot and speechless. His eyes took her in. All of her: ivory shoulders, toned but slender arms, tapered (and thanks to Cassie, manicured) fingers, well-defined calves that were outlined even more by red high heels. A fringe of hair concealed the jewel on her forehead. She grasped a red shawl in her right hand. Her violet eyes studied the floor. The smallest finger on her right hand was dancing the tango against her knee.

Cassie poked her in the ribs and admonished her in a loud whisper. "C'mon, girlfriend, let's strike a pose for the guys. Like I showed you."

Cassie pulled her friend down the rest of the stairs and parked her in front of the living area's picture window. Silhouettes of nearby mountains painted a lavender and indigo backdrop.

"Connor, take our picture. She might only do this once."

She wouldn't look at him. She wouldn't speak. He wasn't sure why. She kept trying to wrap the shawl around her shoulders. And Cassie kept pulling it down. She finally took it away and threw it onto Gar as Connor aimed his cell phone camera at the pair.

"Leave that thing _here_. Ok, sweetie, three . . . two . . . one . . . _cheeeese_."

She finally came to life, maybe because it was Cassie. Cassie could make anybody smile, even sad little birds like this one. Gar pulled the shawl off his head and watched. They stood back to back, each with a light fist on the leading hip. She finally managed a picture-perfect smile that seemed more painted on than felt.

_It's really strange. She doesn't mind my touching her as much as she does my looking at her. I like, no, love, the way she looks. But that dress just reminds her of that day . . . and here I go again . . . _

He felt a howl escape from his lungs. Before he knew it, he was a wolf. "Call 911 boys, the tower is on fire!" He tapped his hind leg against the floor and panted.

She stared back him with wide lavender eyes. She blinked a few times. Suddenly, her fake smile melted into a real one . . . _is she going to la--_

"Uh, dude," Connor whispered to him, turning the camera lens to the floor. "Are you wearing your uniform under your outfit?"

Shirt and pants hung loosely about his green fur. "Ummmmmm, nope."

"Then I suggest you resume human form in the next room. Unless you want to see her howl, too."

* * *

"I'm sorry the movie was sold out, guys."

Cassie winked at him. "That's okay, Gar. We can try a matinee tomorrow. Raven, they have a dessert to _die_ for here. Conner, come with me. Let's get some chocolate cake. Raven has _got_ to have some of this cake."

She pulled him away from the table. And Raven thought she knew why. _As socially inept as I am_, she thought, _I think I am starting to understand these subtleties._

Cassie's conversation flowed across the white tile floor. "Of _course_ she'll like chocolate cake. She's a _she_, after all."

She watched him sink lower into his chair. She stroked the petals of the carnation with her fingers and bit her lower lip.

_Oh, Garfield_. He looked down at the table and focused on his hands. She hated to see him this way. She hated the flavor of disappointment. He had tried so hard to make this a happy event for her. But after a complete odyssey, they were here at a pizza parlor, trying to pull the evening back together.

At least the pain was not so intense tonight. The background noise of absorbed pain was moving more and more into the foreground lately. The feeling had been far too familiar in her old body. It moved around her as if it had a mind of its own. Sometimes it nested in her joints; other days it dug a home into the small of her back. And some days it faded altogether. But right now it was settling back into the backstage of her spirit.

_It would be easier to take if that smell were not so overpowering._ She had excused herself several times, using the words that Cassie had taught her about "powdering her nose", to get away from the nausea. _Azar, why does he try to cover his own smell with that . . . that . . . chemical? _With this invading sensation mixed in with the smells of frying sausage and baking pepperoni, it was all she could do to keep her eyes from watering.

This new odor made her nose twitch. It raked across her nerves. And his self-consciousness – while it did feed that background hunger for ambient emotion, it felt stifling. It was choking her.

"I'm sorry about those guys taking pictures of us, Rave. I know you don't like cameras. And they were so rude. Must've been a slow night for the paparazzi if they were chasing me and my . . .oh . . . sorry."

She rested a hand on his. She couldn't let him stay like this.

"Garfield, I am fine. They did startle me, yes, but I am unharmed. And at the very least our friends were far away enough that they were not photographed as well." _Liar. You were mortified._ She blinked once, hard. _I must stop talking to myself. I am too used to it._

"I just hope those pictures don't blow your high school cover as Rachel. Who knows where they'll get published? I should have thought of this before . . . "

She shrugged. It was not a normal gesture for her, but it felt right for the moment. "We are anything but ordinary. Why should tonight be any different? And I doubt any of my school compatriots would believe my current appearance, anyway."

He raised his eyes to her. She could feel his tension easing down just a little bit.

"It just seems like Murphy is riding with us tonight. That's all."

"Murphy? But there are only four of us-- "

"Oh, no, Rave, I meant--"

She placed a finger on his lips. "I know what you meant. I am very aware of Mr. Murphy. That was just my poor attempt to make you smile."

He did manage a grin, but even then she did not move her hand. Their faces were so close. The clink and clatter of fork against dish in the dining room faded away. Even the overwhelming cologne was losing its edge. His exhalation washed over her cheek as he leaned towards her.

"I am really, really sorry," he began. He moved a little closer with every word as she drew her hand back. "I know we never talk about it, but I am sorry I laughed at you before. Last month. About your name. And that dress. Rachel's a great name. . . and you look so . . .so . . . "

"You're forgiven," she replied with a long, slow blink of her eyes. She twirled the carnation between her fingers. "No one has ever gotten me flowers before."

Her eyes slid closed as she felt the tip of his nose brush her cheek. . .

A loud thump shook her out of the quiet. She then remembered where she was and felt her face grow hot. Conner plopped down across from her with his dessert; the plate still rattled against the table. She felt herself sigh at the same time as Beast Boy as they leaned their separate ways.

"Cake, anyone?" Connor offered her a fork.

He was staring at the table again. _Oh, dear._

Four communicators beeped in unison.

_Trouble. Thank Azar._


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans or any other DC character listed here.

Deeper – Chapter Five – Flying, Take Two

The chill of that interdimensional elsewhere enveloped them for less time than it took to take a breath. The metal half of Cyborg's face gleamed through the black smoke on the other side. The top floors of S.T.A.R. labs loomed over his shoulder.

"Glad you made it here so fast," he said. His face was grim. "We're on the roof of the building across from S.T.A.R.. Do you remember the vault with all our tissue samples from Dr. Rovin over at St. Luke's? Someone just tripped the silent alarm on it. Good thing it rings back to the tower."

"Oh, great, tin-man," moaned Gar. "I knew we should've destroyed those things. Have they left yet?"

"Not yet. But when I contacted S.T.A.R. security, no one answered. Sorry I didn't give ya'll time to change, but this couldn't wait. I needed backup. My infrared scans show at least three of them. And there's more." His electronic eye gleamed like a hot coal. "They're carrying weapons that have an energy signature like the ones we found in Twilight Canyon last month."

"Azar!" Raven exclaimed. "The Black Rose again?"

"You got it. You need to watch them especially, witch. They might have that joy juice with them. Maybe not."

"It's safer to assume they do," Gar interrupted. He cupped her elbow with his palm. "Are you sure she even needs to be out here?"

She glared at him as Cyborg replied, "I'd rather know where she is, BB. We need to—"

A small explosion in the lab's tenth floor rained glass and concrete into the dark. Three shadows shot into the air, blue trails streaming from their backs into three different directions.

"Jetpacks!" Cyborg turned to the team. "Air support, you're on!"

Raven slipped out of her shoes and dropped the flower while Cyborg completed his thoughts: "Cassie, North. Superboy, East. Raven – "

She leapt into the night. Another full moon, another chase. Only this time, she was the hunter.

She crested the concrete and steel spire between her and the flying shadow. Her own shadow leaned into the south, then the west, as the fleeing patch of midnight rounded an intersection and flowed towards a lower block of buildings. The full force of the west wind slammed into her face and raised chill bumps across her skin. Swimming against the current of the cold night air, she pressed the pursuit.

She could hear her teammates reporting in over the radio.

"Wow, these guys are fast," Superboy said.

Her eyes followed the thief as he passed in and out of the hard cold moonlight and all the indigo and violet shades of night, with buildings instead of clouds blocking out its rays. But he did not try to escape into the voids of light, as she would have. Faster now, her heart rate was climbing with the speed. Her spine shivered from the chill wind, but the shiver was exhilarating. There was no metallic taste of fear in that shaking.

Cassie reported in: "He's gone. He has absolutely disappeared. Do you still have yours, Superboy?"

The shades descended lower to the ground, nearly brushing the rooftops of cars sleeping on the street. Left, right, up, down, in a maze of glass canyons. She controlled the flight this time from her center, from her _hara_, like she was learning in class Fortunately, she learned quickly. Her ki extended out from her and stroked the hard surfaces under her and around her. It was less intense than her soulself's touch, but it was enough. His journey through the city telegraphed itself from the air into her nerves.

She approached him closer and closer, and tasted and smelled his flight in her own mind.

_There is no fear there, either_, she concluded. _He's not running from me. I am being herded, once more._

She shouted into her communicator, but she could barely hear her own voice over the wind. "He is leading me, Victor. I may be the hunter, buthe is in control here."

Cyborg's voice whistled over the wind. "Then take control. Get him to chase you."

"Then what?"

"Then open up a can of Hyk Mar, baby. You can do it."

She heard him send out the signal to Beast Boy to head out to follow her; her green companion's cries of protest were just as loud. She couldn't help but smile to herself. Of course he didn't trust this maneuver. Of course not.

"It's just a little mid-air aikido, Gar. She can do this."

Now to turn into the hunted: when her blackened prey turned to look at her, she kicked into the air and aimed for the sky. She felt the eyes follow her up, up, up, until she floated between him and the silver eye of the night. She hovered, knowing only her outline was visible. Cassie's words came to her: _strike a pose_. She tucked her knees up in front of her. The inner rebel that slept beneath her shy veneer awakened as she extended an arm to her side and stretched her fingers out into an open hand.

_I have your attention now_.

She reunited her fingers and swept them in to her palm in a beckoning gesture. _If you want me, come and get me_.

The predator and the prey . . . it was difficult to tell which was which. His form turned and dove into the sky after her. She hovered until he approached still closer, then plunged down and west toward the bay. During her descent she caught another grounded shadow out of the corner of her eye, one that embraced the water as she had the air, melting and reforming mid-jump into a dolphin. Her breath caught in her throat for just a moment, then she forced her mind back to the duty at hand.

_You won't hurt us again. Not this time._

White light caressed her lips, unlike the sun that usually kissed her face during practice. Her mind raced around the steps of the Hyk Mar as Koriand'r had taught her . . .

With labored breaths, she swept down, down, down, in a long slow arc, not like the violent drop that was her goal. She brushed the tops of the waves below. Drops of salt water sprayed her face, making seeing her pursuer difficult. But with her senses unfurling like a sail around her, she did not need to see him. Just feel him.

Knives of fear pierced the space between them. _I have known this before, and lost. _Her eyes squinted against the salty wind. _But this time, I know it is you. I am ready for you._

She reached deep within her mind and allowed her soulself to form, but she did not release it into the wind. What her mind had calculated in Twilight Canyon, her empathy now sought out and captured, like a photograph, to remember for when she found him again. He could not seem to focus on flight and on blocking her out. But her body was flying the plane while her soul read him out. If being able to separate body and soul had taught her anything, it was how to do two things at once.

The empathic signature that she could not capture before due to the poison of Compound 27 in her brain was there, and she seared it into her memory as she veered right, then left, then swerving up, down, her organic flight under tighter control than his mechanical propulsion.

_Got you. I know you now. Fear-eater. I feast on it, too, but not like you._

_I am not you._

A comforting voice edged in apprehension drove into her ears: "I'm in position, Rave. Go for it."

Turn up, turn up, turn up . . . 

Another kick in the darkness raised her higher into the night. _Accelerate. Get him above you._

She increased her speed, her mouth filled with the tastes of salt and steel. He followed, a copy of her own movement. _Blend, Raven, see it from his point of view. He will think he needs to be faster and faster to catch me._

At the last moment, when he seemed to be brushing her ankles with his fingertips, she swiveled on the axis of her shoulder, hurling herself out of the way. His momentum kept him in a straight vertical ascent and placed him directly above her. She spread her arms wide to slow her movement. She hovered and turned her face to her attacker, who was high above her now.

Her chest heaved with the exertion, but she wasn't done yet. He turned and plummeted towards her. _See me as a target, foul one. I am small. I am weak. Come for me._

"Remember to turn this time. I can't catch you both," his voice came to her.

"Octopus," Cyborg advised.

* * *

Dark air, dark water. Liquid flowed around his fins as he chased the predator and the prey dancing in the sky above him. She was there. She was taking an awful chance, using something that never worked in practice. _And she's really pissed off._ Only he could feel how angry she was._ Never a good thing, even under the best of circumstances._

_Octopus, he says_, Gar thought to himself. _Just what she needs to think of me._

_No time for that, just think about catching them. Keep her safe._

A _ki-ai _erupted from her as she charged for the sea below. Charged for _him_.

"You need to turn," Gar warned.

"That," she began.

Her fall and her pursuer grew faster and faster.

"Turn . . ."

"Will not be."

"Turn, turn, _turn_," Gar screamed at her.

The fortress of midnight blue around him rushed up to embrace her.

"Necessary."

Black, acrid smoke emerged from nowhere just feet above the water, and that eerie rushing sound that he should be used to by now echoed across the waves. The dark shadow plunged into the sea instead of her. Gar's newly formed tentacles wrestled with that shadow and wrenched the flying machinery off his back.

Cyborg's voice penetrated the smoke. "I'll meet you on shore."

Warm hands pressed against another tentacle. Her face surfaced from another puff of smoke as she returned to his side.

"I have you. Hold him still," she said between deep ragged breaths that sounded like she had been running for miles. She touched the man's shoulder.

"Sleep," she whispered to him. "Sleep."

He felt the weightlessness of water fading. Replacing it was the firmness of asphalt and pebble. He quickly shifted from eight limbs to four; he held the enemy in a gorilla's full nelson. Cyborg landed a few yards away, grinning from ear to ear. He held out her shoes. The flower was nowhere to be seen.

"That's my girl."

Gar wasn't so busy that he couldn't sneak a sidelong glance at the soaked dress. _Clings in all the right places_, he thought while he tightened his grip on the fallen thug. _Whoops, she probably heard that one. I gotta stop thinking so loudly. _The strange man really was like a shadow; even his face was hidden behind a veil that wrapped around his head.

Gar lowered him to the ground as every muscle in the unknown figure relaxed. Cyborg checked the man's breathing and walked away to radio the rest of their team for pickup.

"I had to make him unconscious before he found his way out, like the others of his group."

"Good. We need him to find out what a group of assassins is doing stealing tissue samples. Who could've hired them?"

"How would they know where the samples were in the first place?" Gar asked.

"I do not know. Perhaps they wanted to sell them on the black market?" she asked.

"They have to fund their tech somehow. Who knows?"

The gorilla looked up at the elf-like figure next to him. Something strange about the whole Hyk Mar move nagged at the back of his mind, but he couldn't quite get a paw on what it was. But he did know that it had taken its toll on tonight. Her feet shuffled across loose gravels as she slid them back into her shoes. Wilted curls plastered her forehead. Black tears of mascara streamed down her glistening cheeks. A loose shoulder strap dangled from her china-white shoulder. _I hope that dress isn't dry clean only._

He began to shift back to his human form until a sharp squeal and a sudden averting of her eyes reminded him that his uniform was back at the tower. He morphed back into the gorilla.

"Some first date, huh." He cringed as he said it.

She sighed as she wrung water from her dripping hair. "Date? It certainly was not . . . not what I had expected."

He hung his head. Not the first time I've screwed this up. First I laugh at her and get thrown out of her room. Then we get hounded by paparazzi on a slow night. Now this. I really wanted this to be perfect for her.

Her hand grasped his and pulled the gorilla to his feet. Her teeth were chattering.

"Life in the Titans is anything but boring. We must always be ready. Do not blame yourself." She snapped a shoulder strap back into place with her free hand as she looked away. "Just please refrain from the cologne next time. There is no need to change your scent for me."

_Next time. And she doesn't mind my eau de wet dog? I like the sound of that._

He held on to her hand. A hand that she didn't pull away like she would have a few weeks ago. He felt a slight tremor in her fingertips.

"You're shivering. Look, maybe we can still get some time in. Why don't you go back to the tower and dry off. Get into something warm. I'll make some popcorn and pop in a flick. I'll even make you my special hot chocolate. Celebrate our teamwork. We do make a good team, y'know. And who knows? Maybe tonight's the night."

"Night for what?"

"Maybe you'll giggle for me. Rachel."

"_Gar_," Cyborg's voice interjected. Held hands broke contact. "Let her get back to the tower. The rest of us are hauling this guy to the precinct. That goes for you, too." He flicked the radio with a steel knuckle. "Erk. Can't get the others on the radio. Gar, stay here with him. Witch, go on and get dried off before you catch your death in that skimpy thing."

He bounded off to the East.

"Well, he's the boss," Gar grinned at her. "Go on. I'll see you soon. Warm up the couch for me."

"Be careful, Garfield. He may not stay unconscious for long. I don't want to leave –"

Her sentence cut off as her eyes glazed over and rolled back into her head. He caught her as her legs buckled. A feathered barb protruded from beneath her ear.

"Raven? What hap-"

Sharp biting pain in his neck.

Darkness.

* * *

A/N: I made up the name Hyk Mar, but I saw a similar maneuver done by Starfire and Robin in the animated series episode "Stranded". 


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans or any other DC character listed here.

Deeper - Chapter Six – Body and Soul

"Wake up."

Cold, wet grit against her calves. Her hands. Her face. Fuzzy darkness tinged with magenta behind stone-heavy eyelids. Every breath was a chore. Damp crawled across her back, her breasts, her thighs, and her hair.

"Raven. Raven." A voice was trying to penetrate the darkness. A wet nose nuzzled her forehead. She pushed it away.

"Krypto --" she muttered.

"Wake up. Raven, wake up," the intruder insisted.

Her left eye peeled open to reveal a world of blur. She gasped and pulled back, her hands searching for sheets to pull over her. She found none. Instead, she found a terrier.

A green terrier.

"What?"

"Shhhh . . . it's just me. You've been out of it for a while. Rest a minute. But not long – we're in trouble. What do you remember?"

"Ummmmm . . . flying . . . water . . . dark . . ." She shook her head. This was worse than groggy. This was _empty_. She searched the air with her fingers, sensing . . . nothing.

"Did they get you again?" He sat up and waved one emerald paw in front of him. "Quick – how many feelings am I holding up?"

Her eyes crossed, then closed. She rubbed her chin with the back her hand. This sickening feeling, the one that sometimes haunted her dreams, was familiar. "None. They did indeed get me."

"Ok, so the escape pod is out of commish. We can't just jump home."

She pressed her fingers into her forehead. She didn't even know where she was, let alone know how to navigate out of here. She concentrated harder so she could examine exactly where they were. White metal walls curved over them. Circular doors enclosed each side. She was draped across a hard metal bench that was sprinkled with dirty sand; the silica clung to her damp dress. Or what was left of it, anyway.

"The doors are sealed," Beast Boy said. "I've already checked them out. This place is airtight. I couldn't get out of here as an ant!"

She rubbed the underside of her aching ear. Something tugged at the back of her mind, but she wasn't sure what. Something was terribly, terribly wrong here.

More of the chamber was coming into focus. Gauges lined the wall next to the heavy door, which had a wheel in its middle. A rack of face masks occupied the opposite wall. The air had a metallic undercurrent flowing through it.

_What is this place?_

The something tugging at the back of her mind took on a face. And it had Bart's face.

_Kid Flash. Of all people . . . _

She struggled to sit up. Gar shifted into an orangutan to assist her.

"What are those gauges measuring?"

"They said something about pounds per square inch. Another talked about atmospheres, whatever that means."

"Air pressure. Oh, Azar."

"What do you mean?"

"Something Bart was trying to get me to think about. Limits on my ability travel."

"And?"

"The hypothetical question of where I could not escape from is no longer hypothetical. I cannot simply leave. And we can't just walk out that door, even if it were not locked. And I am sure it is. That is why no one is here to watch us. We cannot leave."

"Raven, you've got to be more clear on that. That makes no sense."

"We're in a hyperbaric chamber, my friend. I've seen the one at S.T.A.R. labs before, but I never gave it much thought until now. We are breathing pressurized air."

"Like we're SCUBA diving?"

"Yes. I think someone has found the only way to keep me under lock and key. Once this drug in my system wears off, anyway. If we leave now-- "

"We could get the bends. Or worse. That's weird. We're not even under water! I don't think so, anyway."

She felt crimson anger creeping into the margins of her vision. She clenched her hand into a fist. "Why do I get the feeling history is trying to repeat itself? Were we not being pursued by these same people this time last month? That almost ended badly."

"Yes. It had potential to be bad. Very bad." He scratched his ribs as he stared at her fist.

"Garfield, they are not doing this again." Her head was starting to clear, but she was still a little lightheaded. _Thank Azar we figured out where we were before this drug wore off._ "But we cannot leave the usual way."

"So the Rave express is out of order, eh?"

"Indeed. It is time for Plan B."

"Plan B?"

"Something Bart tried to tell me." She stood on wobbly legs, reaching out to the bench to steady herself. She padded over to the gauges that were measuring their life support. Her eyes traveled over the numbers, committing them to memory. She tapped her fingers against her lips and once again felt the damp fabric of her ruined dress clinging to her. She shivered from the chill it created. _I could use that hot chocolate right now_, she mused. She shook her head. _Why is that I always have these strange thoughts when I am in danger? __I had better focus on the problem at hand. What is it Cyborg is always saying – work the problem?_

"What did he say . . . what did he say . . . " she muttered to herself. She chewed on her thumbnail as her brain nibbled away at the situation. Something else deep inside that same brain began to stir from a long slumber as her mind began to whirl.

The emerald orangutan shifted into a parrot and flew across the room to land on her shoulder. "Well, what _did_ he say?"

"Like place to like place. We can still travel. We just have to make sure that our destination is the same pressure as where we started. Then we can worry about getting out of there." That strange something began to worm its way out of its nesting place.

"Ummmm . . . I hate to tell you this, sweetie, but I don't know of any other place that we can go to that's this pressure."

"Of course you do." _I thought the drug was wearing off . . . _The worm was crawling down her spine and into her chest. She shivered again as she tried to fight it off. "The chamber at S.T.A.R. We just have to tell them how to set it up."

"But how are we . . . no, no, hell no, don't tell me you're thinking what I think you're thinking. You're still weak. What if your soulself can't find its way back to us?"

"I was able to last time." She pressed her fingertips into her breastbone. A pressure was building up in her throat and her lungs. _What is wrong with me? I've got to get out of here before I ... _"I am willing to take that chance. If I know where I am going, I may be able to move us out of here, even with the drug in me. I am not as disoriented as last time."

"Unfortunately, I don't have any better ideas. Nobody's here now, but I don't want to stick around for anyone else to join our little party."

A hiccup rumbled in her chest. Something was trying to break out. Something new. Something big. Her fist unclenched. She pushed the heel of her palm into her thigh to stop it.

"Just watch over me, Gar," she replied to the parrot. "You know that I am weaker when I'm separated."

The bird raised his feathers in a salute. "Always a pleasure to watch you, ma'am."

She lowered her eyebrows at him. "I'll still be conscious, you know."

He squawked and rested his beak against her cheek. "You can trust me. Really."

She tapped his head with her finger. "Of course I can. But I have to go now."

She felt the bonds between body and soul loosen and dissolve. A soft white glow flowed through the chamber; her soul was white again. A bright echo of herself stepped away from her body and passed through the top of the chamber. "Take care of me," it sang as it lifted away from them.

Her body leaned forward and caught itself by pressing its palm against the door of their tiny prison. Another hiccup shook her body.

"Raven?" the parrot asked, flying off her shoulder to look at her face. The light through the porthole darkened across her temples. They were no longer alone.

She felt so drained. The filters in her mind that kept her feelings inside had slipped away with her soul. The last vestiges of control were gone. That mysterious worm in her chest decided that now was the time to escape. And from deep within her erupted shrieks of --

* * *

The light ascended through the ceiling of the chamber and into the wider room beyond. It was some sort of laboratory, but she could not linger to study its details. Her body was once again suffering some sort of indignity inflicted upon it by outside sources, although she was not entirely sure that it was Compound 27 causing the problem. She did not remember it making her feel so giddy. 

She moved up and through two other floors of the building and cleared the roof of the structure. Hard white stars shone overhead, and the full moon was low on the horizon. _Think, girl, think. If this is the same night, then that is west. And dawn is coming soon._

Points of origin were so vital. She needed to know where they were, so she rose ever higher and higher into the air for a raven's-eye view of the area. _How far could he have taken two unconscious people in that time? Or three, if he took his fallen associate? Did he have air support?_ _Or did he move us on the ground?_

The building turned out to be a four-story complex set far back on a stony beach; the waves of the sea gleamed beneath the moon. A mountain range rose behind it. _Still on the west coast, then. If this were New York, I would not have a problem. I still do not know the lay of the land here._

_How to find where I am? Think . . . think . . . and what is going on with the rest of me?_ The drug wove a veil between her two halves . . . but something in her was shrieking with --

* * *

Laughter. 

Of all the times he had tried to make her laugh, he had never expected that she would think of something as serious as this funny. She hugged her sides as if she were trying to contain it. She failed.

The shadow at the porthole was even less comical.

Beast Boy shifted himself into a tiger and stood between her and the door. He rose up on his hind legs and growled at the shadow. It didn't matter that he might not be heard – Gar was angry. Angry at being trapped like this again. He could understand why Raven was clenching her fists. _Vulnerability sucks. _What he couldn't understand was why she was acting like she'd just polished off three martinis.

He could feel her behind him, trying to stifle a horrible attack of the giggles. He tried to ignore that very strange sound and focus on the outline of a darkly veiled face.

Am I north or south of San Francisco? For as often as I look at the stars, I should be able to tell . . . would that someone send me a sign . . .

An asphalt ribbon hugged the coastline below. _Wait. Road. Roads mean . . ._

She dove down to the earth below, thankful that her soulself did not feel the chill of the wind. _My body is cold enough for both of us._ And there, reflecting the silver disk in the sky was the very sign she had asked for. _Thank the Great Spirit. Thank Azar. Whoever is listening, thank you, thank you. I am in _–-

* * *

"Big Sur," Raven was muttering over his shoulder amongst her giggles. "We're in Big Sur. Where do I go from here?" 

_I really hope he can't hear me_, Gar thought. Without turning his face away from the door, he replied, "Go North, baby, go north. Just follow the coastline to the tower! And make it quick – we have company."

_Did he say go north?_ She marked the location of the building in her mind, burning the picture into her. Then, keeping the sea to her left, she roared through the sky, back to the tower, back to Victor, back, back, back . . .

* * *

_Give him an eyepatch and he might be Deathstroke's cousin._ There was something else haunting about him, but he wasn't sure what it was. But his soul was etched in his shadow. Proud. Determined. And wanting. 

And scary as hell.

"You okay back there?"

A voice crawled over the speaker. "She's not the one with something to worry about. Not yet, anyway."

_I thought these guys couldn't talk,_ Gar thought, his mind rewinding back to their original information on Black Rose. _Maybe he's the one . . . the leader. The very one that hurt me. Hurt us._

* * *

The growling in his throat froze. Her friend wasn't moving. 

"Beast Boy?" she called out.

"He cannot hear you," the man sneered. "He's dreaming. He's food. Food for people like us."

She staggered to the tiger and slapped her palm against the window. "What do you want with us?"

"Not him. Just you. I just want you. I need fresh blood. New spirit. The rest of my little tribe is gone. Dead by their own stupidity. I need more. More like me." He pressed his palm to the window, as if to reach through to her. "More like you."

She jerked her hand back – it was like brushing a steaming tailpipe.

_I cannot feel him on my own_, she thought. _He is pushing onto me._

"Do you want to attack me again? Make me afraid again?" Fingers of energy were dancing across the leading edge of her brain, seeking a way in. But they were not finding it. "What this time? You've already tried driving us into the ground. What? My father? He's dead. He's gone. Sebastian? The boy half my age that wants to _mate_ with me?" She howled with laughter at him. "Don't even try it. He's nothing compared to not being able to feel . . . not being able to live. Nothing compared to feeling like you're beyond saving." She didn't know why her whole past suddenly seemed so . . . absurd. Like it should never have happened. She choked out the rest with a gravelly voice. "It's nothing compared to feeling like the universe is going to self-destruct just because you're having a bad hair day."

Why am I talking like this? 

He raked his fingernails across the glass. "I, too, am beyond saving. But I don't feel like I need to be saved. I just need you, little sister. I need others that feed like me. I need my tribe."

* * *

Faster and faster flew the light, rising higher and higher to feel ahead. _Victor, dear friend, help me find you. Help me get home_. 

Sand and surf and stone below. The East was growing less dark as the moon sank into the sea.

The tower gleamed ahead, a bright tall "T" against the sky. Was Cyborg there? _Please, someone be there . . .if he is out looking for us, I will have to reach out for his mind . . ._

She sailed through the steel and glass of the exterior, finding the command center. No Cyborg here. Kid Flash was there, though, leaning on his elbow, fast asleep at the console. _Victor must have called him in when we disappeared; it would take him no time to get here._

"Bart, awaken!" She heard her own ethereal voice vibrating through the room.

"Gaaaaah!" He started awake, shrinking back for a moment before he recognized her.

"Where are you guys? Cyborg is out looking –"

"We've been taken. Time for your Plan B, Bart."

* * *

"Tribe?" She pressed her hand into the tiger's paw, squeezing it in her fingers to wake him up. "Why me?" I cannot get his signature . . . I cannot see his face . . . who is he? 

"I brought you here to this place so you could hear me out before you ran from me again. We are two of a certain kind. I once knew all the feelings in the world, just like you. But they were shut off. Stripped from me. Only one thing could get through: fear. Without feeling, I began to starve from the inside out. Only fear could penetrate the mist in my heart. I could taste only it."

"What –"

"A drug. Like the one coursing through you now, only more powerful. Someone tried . . . tried to help me with it once." He leaned into the door and pushed his forehead into the glass. "But it was far stronger than that someone thought. If I give you enough of what I have taken, it will make you like me . . . like my own child."

"Don't," she said, her word punctuated by short rippled breaths. "I have had enough of that for a lifetime. Twenty lifetimes."

"Be like me. When I can't find the fear, I have to make it. I have to reach into minds and drag the fear out so I can feed. That is why I stretch out the kill, why fear is my weapon."

She wished she could transform herself into a tiger. She growled her mirth at him. "Why kill at all?"

"Because it gives me back my place in this world. A purpose other than to feed. And it helps me to feed. They go hand in hand." His fingers stroked the door. "As we should, my child. But I do not understand why you laugh at this."

_Neither do I_.

* * *

Bart stared at the light next to him. It was just an outline of the Raven he knew, mostly her cloak. She had spooked him at first, but it wasn't taking him long to get used to talking to her other self. 

They had gotten tattoos together, after all.

"What was the pressure again?"

"The gauge said three atmospheres. Does that help?" She sounded so distant, even though she was standing right there. Well, almost.

He spoke into the phone again. "Ok, they're getting set up. Vic'll meet you guys there. Glad you already 'member where it is. Go find yourself." He stopped to think about what he had just said. "Uh, yeah. That's it. Go find yourself."

"Azar bless you, Bart," the light called as it slipped through the walls and back into the fading night.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans or any other DC character listed here.

Deeper - Chapter Seven – Summoned

The hidden face melted and re-formed. Red skin. Two pairs of fierce yellow eyes, sharpened ears, an elf painted in blood and black and blue . . .

Gar screamed at the dark echo of someone he . . .

"You," it said. "The one she called friend. The one that held a seed. I seek you."

Black-blue arms reached through the door and pulled him through the metal to the other side. But it wasn't a lab. It was a furnace – blazes licking and burning and crisping the air around them. Only the flames pierced the smothering darkness . . . nothing else was there. Nothing.

_This can't be real, this is him, him making me afraid._

_He's doing a good job._

* * *

"Your friend's fear is delicious. Say you'll join me, and you'll drink it like sweet honey." The dark man's voice chilled Raven's skin. 

The intoxicating fumes of whatever was tickling her insides rose higher into her head. It was the same feeling she sipped whenever she wandered too close to a smoky bar . . .

She let go of the paw and rammed her fists into the porthole frame. "What makes you think I want to taste his _fear? _Why do I even speak to you?" _I have already made contact. I am leaving soon._

"Because you have no choice. Because I can send you deeper. Both of you. In here I can send you so deep that the very oxygen that gives you life will be poison to you."

* * *

The jade tiger struggled in that iron fist. His claws tore at the air and ripped at her back. She held him away from her by his scruff. 

"Hold! I do not seek to harm you. Not this time."

"Put me down, Raven! Put me down!" He could not focus, could not think. The air was hot and heavy and impossible to breathe. _This can't be her. It can't be. _But he couldn't see inside the chamber. He couldn't see her.

Mirthless laughter trickled from the red Raven's mouth. "I am not who you think I am, mortal. I am the last child of Trigon." She twisted the loose furry skin in her hands while he kicked at her with massive rear legs. "Not the one you call Raven."

He struggled in her grip, amazed at the towering height of the wraith. "What do you call yourself, then?" he growled.

"I have no name. She took it from me. _Arjh-no-ree_. She took it from me."

_Arjh-no-ree._ She spat the words like a curse.

He twisted free of her talons and landed on top of her, shredding her long, long cloak. He lowered his heavy jaws over her face, lips pulled back to reveal sharp fangs gleaming in the firelight. "You're just her body. You're gone. We destroyed you."

She buried her fingers in the fur of his forelegs. Fumes of sulphur poured from her glistening skin. "I am in hell, but I am never gone. More's the pity."

"Liar!"

"I do not lie – lies only bury me deeper in the flames. Lies cannot free me. Only truth." She wrapped her hands around his front paws and pushed herself out from underneath him. No scent of fear lingered where she had been. No fear at all.

"Then why do you do this? To hurt me again? To make her dark again?"

"Foolish little creature. That sanctimonious bitch was never dark. Only I." She stood up and tore her ruined cloak free of her shoulders. "Only I was dark."

His eyes darted from left to right, looking for room to move. His lungs rebelled at breathing the acrid air. He stepped back, one leg at a time, ready to spring again. He shook his head at the voice, so like Raven's voice but with an echo of Trigon's deeper bass reverberating with every word in a wicked harmony.

"You're not here," he repeated, more to himself than to her. He crouched, ready to attach. "You're just that beast trying to make me afraid. Again."

Sharpened canines glinted from between her blackened lips. "Oh, but you're wrong, there, changeling. That is what you are isn't it? A changeling? Like me." Her face flowed again . . .

And emerged as the old Raven. Long, long ebony hair, that curving line at the edge of her eyes, that pale skin, that chiseled stone face. The one that had found them all . . . the one who had fought her father and died . . .again and again . . .

He shrieked at the sight of her. "No more! Stop it! Stop looking like her! You are not here!"

An evil smirk crawled slithered her haunting face. "But I really am here. I am not just a vision. I came through _him_, through your attacker. He is of my bloodline." She stepped closer to him "Her shell is no longer in that line. Her blood has been purged of me, and our connection is severed."

_Bloodline? How? Who has us? No, no, she's lying. She has to be. . ._

"But now you can connect me to her."

* * *

She could feel her soul soaring through the sky, soaring back to her. 

"What is your name, fear-eater? Why did you take what you took? You weren't just after me."

He stepped away from the door. Her lungs labored in the heavier air as his hands moved across the unseen controls of the chamber. Invisible fingers shoved against her eardrums, squeezing until she swallowed against the pressure.

"But I was. I was after you one way or another. When I tasted your fear the first time, I learned everything about you. And my name? You have heard it before, my dear. You have heard it before. And if you won't join me, I'll make more like you."

* * *

Rage swelled in Beast Boy, nearly bursting his heaving chest. Memories of all the evil this creature had forced on him . . . ripping out his own shady half and throwing it against him . . . forcing him to murder it . . . forcing him to murder _her_ . . . filling him with germs of corruptness . . . 

She held up her hand. "Stop! Do not fear me now!"

"Why?" he howled through clenched tiger-teeth. "Fear is all you ever wanted."

"Because he feeds off your fear! Fear is all he consumes. Do not expect him to explain it. He will not even speak to you. And if he cannot find fear, brave one, he creates it. So for you, he conjured my image from your haunted memories. But he got more than he asked for – he summoned _me_ as well."

The tiger dissolved. The raging bull in his mind tore forward, plowing himself at her at full speed. He rammed her into an unseen wall with a wet _thump, _splintering scorched stone in a cloud of dust. But she merely arched her back, lifting her chin up, yawning her mouth wide open in pleasure instead of pain. She dug fingernails of broken glass into his withers, pinning him down by his own shoulders. Agony stung his eyes.

"I will tell you why I treat with you. Someone once said that it is better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. But only one reigns in hell, and it is not I. I ever desired power, and there is no power for me here. I want you -- want her – to free me!"

He lowered his head, pushing the ersatz-Raven beneath him. He bucked and snorted and rolled onto his back to crush the lying breath out of this crimson vision, trying to erase her from his mind. "Let me go! Leave her alone!" He rolled again, pressing on her with every word. "Leave. Her. Alone."

_No, no, no, not this . . . she is free of you . . . you can't be here . . . _

Somehow this demon slipped out from underneath him. She knelt beside him, spreading her hand out to his outstretched body on the floor. China-white skin bled back to flaming crimson. Eyes emerged on her forehead, glowing with the flames around them. "I have no power here any more. I am not doing this. But as a gesture of good faith, I can give you the way out: remember despair and joy are as fire and ice. Remember that light destroys the dark. As it destroyed my father. As it destroyed _me_."

She pushed him to his side as she continued to weave her hypnotic tones. "She is safe. Your enemy cannot touch her now. Her delirium forces him out of her mind. The gases in her blood mixed with the drug he injected create a wall – he is being conquered by his own weapons. And they keep me away as well. So I give my message for her to you. Indulge your happiness. Laugh with her and drown out the fear he brings to you, and you will escape from his grasp. Her mysterious joy slips past the hold of the drug. Let it envelop you. Then tell her."

She rested one gloved hand against his muzzle, and he felt himself revert back to a human state against his will. Wrapping one slender hand around his neck, she raised him above her head, impaling him with the stare of four jaundiced eyes. He tore at the hand with all of his might, but her searing hot flesh was sealed to his.

"Hear me now. I have no power to do anything here but change the images that you see. But I come through his mind. I see his plans. He will never speak to you. Why should he? You are fodder for him. The fear-eater will take his fill of you and then take her for his own servant. He will twist her mind with the same drug that crippled his, until fear is all she can see, all she can smell, all she can crave." She squeezed the air out of his throat until his larynx rattled. He tried to change into a snake, a panther, a wolverine . . . nothing worked. "I cannot have that. If he controls her, then I have no way out. You must not let him have her. You must escape."

He sputtered and strained against her fist. "But she is you . . . you are part of her . . . "

She lifted him up over her head. She tossed him back at the closed door of the chamber, which he passed through like a ghost. Her heard her voice, the demonic timbre of it fading with her image:

_I was never part of her. I despised her light until I swallowed the darkness. I choke on the dark, and it knows no end. It destroys me again and again and again. I want her back. I want her light back. Tell her. Tell her. I want to be in the light again. Arjh-no-ree. She held me back. She used me to destroy my father. And when I sought to restore him, she annihilated me again. Arjh-no-ree. I have ever cursed her since I learned her name. But I would bless her, if she would only set me free. Tell her. She isn't who she thinks she is. Tell her. Only my enemy can save me now. Go . . . go . . . Arjh-no-ree . . ._

Sick laughter that was not his own began to leak from his guts as the fear and the rage faded away. It washed over him like a tidal wave . . . the flames were dissolving . . .the darkness fleeing . . .

He was yanked from the vision by cold fingers twining in his tiger's fur. He was still standing at the door, but the silent shadow was gone. A golden burst of light surrounded him.

"I have returned," she said from behind him. As black smoke enveloped him both, he felt the vision fade from his memory like a long-forgotten dream. Only one thing remained, one faint chant . . .

_Arjh-no-ree . ._ .

* * *

A/N: Arjh-no-ree: The first syllable is pronounced with a "soft" j sound (like the g in "mirage"), kind of like a pirate's "Argh" but with the soft sound at the end. The rest is pronounced as written, with a heavier emphasis on the last syllable (arjh-no-REE) 

Most of Gar's memories of the red Raven here are from the TERROR OF TRIGON story arc (80s comic series).

The "seed" that she mentions is one of the Trigon seeds planted in Gar during the Evil Raven Titans' story arc post Titans-Hunt (90s comic series). I really hated that storyline, but unfortunately I cannot ignore it. I am giving some hints here as to why that whole story line was the way it was. . .IMHO, anyway.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans or any other DC character listed here. I also do not own Mr. Spock, Queen, or Jimmy Buffett. Don't ask. Just read.

Deeper – Chapter Eight – The Truth

"We've got smoke!"

The technicians backed away from the center of the black cloud as two figures clinging to each other emerged. One wrapped a blanket around Beast Boy so he could resume human form. They then pressed forward with oxygen masks and clamped them over two relieved faces.

"Dr. Sommers, those guys are _good_," Vic remarked to the doctor standing next to him. "I thought they'd freak even when they knew it was coming. Most people do."

The doctor's smile lit up her ebony face. "This is S.T.A.R. We've seen weirder, sugar." She spoke into the microphone. "Okay, fellas, they're on oh-two now. Get some blood gases for me, willya?" She glanced at Cyborg. "Strange costume your friend has. A little skimpy."

"Uh, they were on a date. That's not her usual –"

"You mean the green fella is sweet on her? How cute. Well, they'll be in there a while until the deco cycle is done. Good thing they get along."

He kept watching through the porthole. _Gar seems fine, but she . . . she . . ._

Her shoulders were shaking within the arms of the tech, who was sitting her down on the cot in the chamber. Her eyes were shining.

He leaned over the microphone. "Gar, why is she crying? What happened?"

Now she was slapping the cot with her palm and leaning back against the wall.

"She's laughing, sir," the tech hovering over her replied. "Yeah, three martinis. I'd believe they were at a hundred and fifty feet. Keep your mask on, sweetie. Calm down, now."

"Let me see, let me see!" Kid Flash clamored behind Cyborg, holding up a bag full of blue, purple and white. "I forgot her boots and gloves, sorry." He shoved the bag at Cyborg and pressed his face against the glass. He howled. "Dude, she is soooooo narc'd!"

"Would someone _please_ tell me what is going on?"

Dr. Sommers chuckled and brushed his hand with a polished fingernail. "Rapture of the Deep, Mr. Stone. Also known as nitrogen narcosis. Too much nitrogen buildup in her system is making her act, well, intoxicated. Like the man said, three martinis."

"But he seems to be okay, though."

"It affects different people in different ways. Some people get it at shallower depths than others. The oxygen should help with that. She'll be a bit of a wild child for a few hours, until we get her 'up' to about 55 feet or so." She looked at her watch. "It's almost dawn now."

"That's what worries me, doc. Can we get her under control –"

"Cut the girl some slack, darlin'. Looks to me like she's had a rough ride already. It'll do her good to laugh it off." She shrugged. "So she loses control for a little while. It's not like it's the end of the world."

"Anybody else, maybe, but her –"

"What about her?"

Bart piped in. "Normally, she makes Mr. Spock look like a party animal."

Gar made his way over to the microphone. "Vic, are you hearing what I'm not hearing?"

Vic pushed his head into his metallic hands. "I hear the most powerful soul on the planet absolutely losing control –"

"Yeah, she's singing _Margaritaville_ right now. Anything else?"

"And . . . and . . . "

No thunder. No earthquakes. No otherworldly demonic moaning. No shadow armies roaring across the mountains. Nothing on SONAR, RADAR, infrared . . .

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing . . . " his thoughts trailed off to nowhere.

"Exactly," Gar chuckled. "She's been doing that since we woke up. I figure if anything was gonna happen, it would've happened already. In spite of appearances, I think she has a handle on it Maybe it's the aikido, who knows." He ran his hands through his hair. _Man, I need a shower in the worst way._ "At least we got her to laugh." He listened to her belt out more off-key Jimmy Buffett in the background. "But I think she spent all of her singing lesson money on incense."

"Your friend's right," Dr. Sommers cackled and winked at Cyborg. "Girlfriend can_not_ sing."

"Well, she just discovered music."

" Ahhh, here's the blood gas results . . . . she's still got some of the drug you told us about in her system but it's working it's way out. . . awwwwwwww, they'll be just fine. But we'll check again later. How's the ascension going, boys? Mr. Stone –"

"Call me Vic."

"Call me Lenina, Vic." She inclined her head at him. "They're starting out like they're at a hundred and fifty feet. They'll change the pressure over time in there to act as if they are doing a slow vertical ascent. Every so often we have to hold at a pressure for a safety stop, okay?" She opened the mike again. "And you, green fella, yeah, you can go off the oxygen, but keep your gal on it, all right?" She closed the microphone circuit. She smiled again. "Did you ever play football?"

Raven was mumbling something through her mask.

"What did she say, Gar?"

"She said to tell Kid Flash to keep asking annoying questions. He saved our lives."

"Are there any side effects to this?" Vic asked the doctor.

"Several. Sometimes people just act happy. And sometimes, just sometimes, they tell the truth."

Vic watched his best friend sit on the cot next to her, one hand on the back of her neck and one hand on her mask. She watched him through wet-rimmed eyes. Deep belly laughs leaned her into his shoulder. Her hand rested on his and pulled her mask off long enough for her to kiss the green man squarely on the mouth. His jaw dropped and clanged loudly against the frame of the porthole. She said something that he could not make out and replaced the mask. He couldn't see Gar's reaction, but he did see Kid Flash's eyes nearly pop out of his head.

"Didn't see _that_ coming!" he bellowed.

Dr. Sommers elbowed Cyborg in his metallic ribs. Her eyes examined him up and down with an admiring look. "I think she's sweet on him right back."

Vic shook his head, his gentle laughter tinged with wistfulness. "That's my girl."

* * *

Superboy and Wonder Girl backtracked her trail to the stony beach. Their prison lurked in the dark like some ancient cave. 

"No lights in the windows."

"Connor, maybe the chamber is in an inside room."

"Or underground."

They flew into the building's shadow to stay out of reach of the security lights.

"What kind of place is this, Cas? Is there a logo or a sign or something?"

Cassie touched his wrist and gasped. "Look at the symbol there on the helipad –"

"Oh, God, no. It's CADMUS."

* * *

When the mask returned to her face, he replayed those words in his head: "I love you, Gar Logan." 

_Did what I think just happened just happen_? His hands tingled as he held the mask more firmly. He felt the blood rushing to his face. _I know everybody saw that._

He'd heard the doctor's explanation for her very odd behavior. _I'll buy that_, he thought. _But was that her talking just now, or the nitrogen?_

She was starting to shiver. Her dress was drier now, but he was sure she wasn't comfortable. He mentioned the problem to the attendants, who gave him two sets of surgical scrubs and pointed to the small privacy cubicle at the back of the chamber.

"She's been on the oh-two for a while, sir. She'll be ok off of it for a few minutes."

He guided her back to the cubicle while holding the blanket around him, toga-style. She was humming a tuneless song now. He wasn't sure what to think at this point.

She was reaching around to her back, searching for a very elusive zipper. She tapped her fingers against her chin and looked at him through drowsy eyes. "Would you undo me, please?"

One short, helpless, unsure giggle forced its way out of his throat. "I don't know, darlin', this is only our first date."

"Garfield. Silly boy. Unzip me."

He heard the other men guffaw behind him. He rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and sighed while he urged the zipper down her back. All the animals in him wanted to look down, but the friend in him warned him that if he did, she would remember later and absolutely kill him. He kept looking up.

"Thank you," she sang as she disappeared around the corner. He handed the scrubs to her, happy to get her around the wall. He whistled to the ceiling while he heard her struggling out of what was left of that infamous red dress. It promptly sailed over the partition and landed in his lap.

Slender fingers wrapped around the corner of the cubicle. Her face and incredibly bare shoulders followed. "Garfield, are you ever going to tell me the rest of that joke?"

He cleared his throat while he pushed her shoulder back out of view. _Wild child, indeed_.

"Stay back there, Rave. Your tattoo is showing. Which joke?"

"Your joke . . . a Tamaranean and a Pacifist walk into a bar . . . "

He sighed. _It's going to be a long night._

* * *

"Come back in, you two," Vic spoke into his radio. "If he's gone, he's gone." 

"But why CADMUS, Cyborg? Why would they hire assassins to steal tissue samples?"

"I don't know, SB, I just don't know. But I don't like it any more than you do. CADMUS and metahuman samples in the same sentence are bad news. We need some forensics. Did you lift any prints?"

"Just like Robin taught me. But we can't be sure they're his."

"It's a place to start."

* * *

He finally got her to calm down, after several rounds of a horrible rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody". He thought that if she sang it one more time that Vic was going to throw a rod. It took all of his powers of restraint, but he finally got both of them into the scrubs. _I knew I shouldn't have gotten her that Queen CD. I wonder if she's going to remember all of this later._

He was sitting on the cot again, this time with her curled up next to him in slate-gray hospital pajamas. Her head was nestled against his chest; his arms draped around her sleeping body. Her feet were tucked under his knees. There she was, trusting him again. There he was, holding her again while she was helpless, just like he had about a month ago. So much had changed since then, but here they were once more.

_I've tried to kiss her since then, but I don't know how she felt about it. Now, she plants one on me when she's basically three – no, five -- sheets to the wind. And what she said! In front of God, Vic and everybody._

Vic had stepped out for coffee with the doctor. Satisfied that the world wasn't going to hell on a floppy disk just because his favorite witch was a little out of it, he'd stopped watching her like a mother hawk. He'd been checking on Cassie and Superboy after that. He shook his head. _This isn't over._

He studied her sleeping face. He had never seen such a peaceful look on her before: the sleep of the innocent. He exhaled gently, gathering that picture into his memory. He breathed in the scent of rosemary and salt and sweat that permeated her skin. A soundless whisper echoed in his head: _Arjh-no-ree_. He did not know what it meant, but it was oddly comforting. He felt a slight squeeze in his chest muscles as he kissed her head through her tousled hair. He didn't know why, but that one last barrier in his mind blinded him to what he really felt was no longer there.

_Even demons were angels once. _

_Who says the daughter of one can't be an angel?_

There was something he knew now that he didn't know before. He wasn't quite sure what it was, and he didn't know why or how he knew it. He just did. And he was not afraid.

Something in his brain clicked. _That's it_, he thought. That strange instant that hits everyone that has ever loved – that instant when they realize that they are in love – crashed into him like a souped-up Tamaranean star fighter. _I've fallen. No one's going to believe it. I hardly believe it myself. No logic to it at all. It just is what it is. _

_I've fallen. _

_And she'll know as soon as she wakes up. . ._

_But what about _her

One of the techs looked up from his newspaper to the gauges on the wall. "It shouldn't be too much longer, sir. Your friends have a change of clothes for you in the waiting room."

"Thanks."

He looked once more at her sleeping smile.

_Where do I go from here?_

* * *

A/N: In case you haven't kept up with the comic series, CADMUS is the lab that created Superboy as a clone of Superman and Lex Luthor (although at issue #20, only Connor and Robin know that Lex is his other half). 

Looks to me like someone is sweet on Vic, too! Let me know if you like Dr. Sommers. I thought I would make her personality somewhat like Cyborg's: intelligent, capable, humorous, and down-to-earth.


	9. Chapter 9

Deeper – Last Chapter – Flying, Take Three 

_Dear Thunder Horse,_

_Grandfather was wise. The truth does indeed come out in funny ways. He knows. And I know he knows. And the knowing tastes sweet to me._

* * *

After a quick debriefing session, everyone else had gone out for dinner. Cyborg had sent feelers out, trying to follow the now-cold trail of the BRU. And the teams' errant DNA samples. But for now, the tower was empty. Almost. 

She had stayed behind, claiming fatigue. So had he. Shedding his purple-and-whites, he eased into his favorite tower-lounging gear: jeans and a soft-as-a-cloud white t-shirt. They were his favorites because he had worn them on the plane back from that place where he first really put the pieces of the puzzle called Raven together. From the place where she had first truly trusted him.

Her door was open. She was there, one gloveless hand pressed against her window. She gazed out at the sun shining on the bay. The hood of her cloak covered her head. He could barely see the ghost of her face against the half-mirror of the glass. The reflection's lips curled into a smile as he crossed the threshold.

Three shades of blue. Her cloak. Her glass. Her sky.

He tried to still that internal shaking that was on the verge of creeping into his voice. _Still new to me, to see her smile._

_And she is smiling at me._

"How are you doing, Raven?"

Her head tilted slowly towards him. Her smile broadened. "I have never been better. I suppose laughter, even if it is nitrogen-induced, is good medicine after all."

He chuckled. "You really let it loose today, didn't you?"

She rubbed her side with the flat of her hand. "My ribs still ache. But it is a good pain, for once." She reached over and laid her hand on his forearm. "You were right. It was the night that you got me to giggle."

He forced his eyes to the floor and worried his left canine with his tongue. _What do I say next? _Then he noticed her bare legs – she wasn't wearing her boots, either. The closeness of her creamy skin squeezed a sigh out of him. _I have to ask. I have to. This is the point of no return._

"S-so, was else was just nitrogen-induced today?" he sputtered. He thought, _how lame can I get_, but it was all the speech that he could manage. The Gar-quake found its way into his hands. He thought he would shake to pieces until she took his hands in her long, tapered fingers.

"Only the crumbling of some very old and very high walls, Gar. Walls that hid the truth."

* * *

_The truth is that I can pray again. I pray all the time now. Even if those prayers are not always answered, I know someone is listening. The truth is that I have a family once more. You, my cousin. Victor, truly the father I should have had. Starfire, my second mother. My brothers and my sisters . . ._

* * *

"The truth?" 

"Yes. I meant everything I said. And did. I was just finally . . . relaxed . . . enough to say it. And do it." She raised her chin and locked her eyes onto his face. "You welcomed me home with open arms when others were terrified of me. You remember the smallest details of my life. You exhaust yourself to wring the smallest bit of joy from me. " Her hands closed around his. "Your very attempts to make me laugh bring a smile to my heart. If not always to my face."

She stepped closer to him. Her bare toes whispered against the carpet. "You can even heal me."

He returned her gaze; all he could see was amber sparkling in those shadowed violet eyes. All he could smell was rosemary swirled in incense. All he could hear was the roar of blood in his ears. All he could feel was the stillness in her smallest fingers.

"I find myself going out of my way to touch you. And be touched by you. To just be next to you and savor the taste of your affection on my lips. I say it once again, and without any help. Plainly. Simply. Boldly. I love you, Gar Logan."

He closed his eyes against that violet sky. His fingers tightened against his palms. But he could not escape the scent of rosemary that pursued him, and he felt the gravity of her body pulling him into her orbit.

She rested her hand against his jaw. "Do you really think my difficulty with the Hyk Mar is sheer clumsiness? And that the altimeter always fails on its own?"

Her question came back to him: _The falling or the catching? _As his breath caught in his tightening throat, he felt her take his hands again. She placed them on the edges of her hood, closing his fingers within her own.

"Look at me, Garfield."

He opened his eyes again and stared into the bird's shadow beneath her cowl.

"Look at me."

Fabric rustled against her growing hair as he pushed the hood back away from a face that he had been memorizing for weeks. Not the face of the Mistress of Magic, not the face of the daughter of a dark demon overlord, not the face of a vessel of terrifying strength and power. Not the face of someone torn between two worlds, not the face of a tightrope walker between childhood and adulthood. But the face of a woman.

A woman whose soul filled the sky. A woman who willingly bore the scars others. A woman who was often hated by the world but who somehow managed to keep loving it anyway. A woman who had returned his adoptive father's sanity, so very long ago. A woman who had saved his own life a hundred times over. A woman who had passed through the very fires of hell in her short, tortured life and still stood here, smiling at him. A woman who accepted him for who he was, without the smallest bit of pity.

A woman that he loved.

"I know what you are feeling, Gar." The silk in her voice rippled across his ears. It had a soothing earthiness that he had never heard in it before. Low to the ground. Husky. "The empath in me senses it. But the woman in me needs to hear it. Needs to feel it."

He shook off the spell of silence. "There _is_ a woman under this cloak. I know it."

He released the hood he had been clutching and rested clammy hands on her shoulders. He could feel her heartbeat now, as rapid as during that fierce moonlight dash across the desert. Their breathing merged in a common rhythm. The quakes in his skin telegraphed over to her small form. He felt her trembling in his fingertips, and the moisture in his palms mingled with the sweat beading on her back.

"After all this time, I know it. You're here. You're _real_."

He studied her face. Sunlight streamed through the window and reflected off her hair and her eyes. One side of his mouth curled into a half-moon smile.

"And you're home. You're safe."

Holding her shoulders more tightly, he drew her close to him. He had already plunged into this sea before, in the embrace where he had welcomed her home . . . and in the sunrise after Twilight Canyon. Now, he was ready to go deeper.

He leaned down, brushing the tip of her nose with his own. "Do you want to have more than the taste of affection on those lips?"

Tender fingers caressed his cheek. Traced the point of his ear.

"I'm falling, Garfield."

He surrendered to the well of gravity that was pulling him in.

"Catch me."

* * *

. . . _and now my beloved one._

_For my entire life, I have built walls around me to protect myself, and to protect those that called me friend. Those walls have melted. Now they are lines, just lines. Lines that only wait for me to cross them. And for each one that I cross, I find another one that is deeper still. But still, it is just a line. Not a wall._

* * *

It was just the slightest of motions: leaning his face down to touch one cheek with his own, so very slowly, drawing his skin across hers. He pressed his lips against her jawline so gently that she could barely feel them. He traveled up that line to her mouth, and then -- 

So many sensations, so fast. Arms forged a fortress around her. Hands wound under her cloak and pressed against the tattoo in the small of her back, pushing her empathic aches into the far reaches of her mind. Hair wound around her fingers. Firm lips settled on hers, wet and alive. Gentle at first, just a caress on the edge of each lip, then longer and fiercer and more urgent with each passing moment. No time to think. No time to breathe. Just time enough to feel a magnetic pull from his center to her hara, rushing her into him with such a force that his shoulders blended with the wall. With a short grunt and an upward turn of a smile, he kept on kissing her, with his warm breath radiating across her face.

Her mouth was full of his flavors: that ever present apple candy tartness, sweet and sour disbelief, creamy affection, salty relief, and . . . something else. It was a honey-smooth something else that she had tasted from other men before, many who broadcast it loudly at women they didn't even know. It was a honey-smooth something else that she had gotten from him the first time he had seen her in that infamous red dress. That sensation had frightened her so, coming from his direction.

But she had never tasted it blended so well with tenderness and protection. Her toes dug into the carpet as she savored it. Every inch of contact felt more intense than in any other embrace in her life. Her hunger for touch awakened again, wanting more than the little sips it had taken in. Rough denim swept against her thighs; soft cotton surrounded her shoulders. Every time his skin touched hers, a gentle warmth rippled through her core. And he was careful, so careful, not to hurt her with the sharpness of his teeth as his kisses deepened into her.

_Control the control_. The words ricocheted through her otherwise empty mind. _Keep it when you need it. Let it go when you need to be without it. Control the control._ _Now is the time to let it go._ Empty except for a rolling field of green behind her eyes, that green linked to the honey on her lips. She felt the last vestiges of the drug slip away from her brain. She allowed the color to glow, brighter and brighter, and then released it. It poured out of her mind and washed over his brain like a warm bath. She felt a shudder cascade down his spine with such power that his mouth broke contact with hers. Eyes the same shade as that field rolled back beneath his eyelids as an aftershock rumbled through his shoulders. His lips gaped wide as his jaw hinged open.

"Oh. Oh," was the only sound that escaped them. "Oh. Oh. Oh that. That. That. Oh, my. Oh. My." He rested his forehead against hers; her jewel warmed his skin. "I have never felt . . . that . . . before."

"I have never done . . . that . . . before." A slight haze collected on her eyes. She swayed from the aftermath of the push of energy, but he held her upright. She rubbed her face into his chest as they both tried to regain their balance.

"Is this the part where I ask if that was good for you?" she whispered.

"I don't think there's a word to describe how good that was." His breath still remained beyond his reach.

She let her eyelids close and allowed a contented sigh to escape her. "I will take that as an answer in the affirmative."

Laughter bubbled from them both as he squeezed her more tightly. She felt that new line waiting to be crossed against her waist. Her eyes widened as she felt her pulse booming there. She pursed her lips, not sure how to deal with this new sensation. He must have sensed her confusion; he traced the outline of her cheekbone with his finger and whispered, "We'll discuss _that_ later."

He cleared his throat and spoke again. "What do you call that, exactly?"

"What?"

"That sexy Jedi mind-trick you just played on me."

"Oh. I call it reflection. I gather up all the energy of a single emotion in the room and push it back out in one direction."

"Ah."

"I think everyone else calls it lust."

"Raven!"

"Why not? It is just the truth." She spoke into his chest while she stroked his fingers with her free hand. " Just remind me to only do that when we are alone. One man's attentions are all I can cope with at a time."

"You little rebel, you. I think Compound 27 blew some fuses in your brain. Where in the world did you learn how to kiss like that?"

"Research."

He uttered a small, soft chortle as he cradled her head in his hand. He hummed softly into her hair, hummed those three small words that the woman in her wanted him to trickle into her ear. The words that he already knew were true.

"Let me," he continued. "_Let_ me love you. Let me make up for all those lonely years when no one could touch you. Let me." He kissed the gem above her eyes. "Let me."

She felt his aura wrap around them in a blanket of contentment. Not the aura of a great hero. Not the aura of a washed-up child actor. Not the aura of the Titans' class clown. Not the aura of a walking zoo. But the aura of a man.

A man with a heart full of hope. A man who had lost almost everyone he had ever loved but somehow kept loving anyway. A man who made the tower feel like a home, the only true home she had ever known. A man who looked on her with tenderness in his eyes despite her many marks of Cain. A man who had witnessed more horror and pain in his few short years than most people suffer in a lifetime. And there he was, laughing the afternoon away with her. A man whose very presence protected her.

A man that she loved.

And that thing which she needed most, that thing that had been most forbidden to her for all of her life until now, was there, bathing her in its glow.

"You caught me," she whispered back. "Love me, then."

They fell silent for a moment, wrapped in the warmth of the sunshine streaming through the window, neither wanting to let go first. With the lightest of touches, he stroked the hair above her jewel with his fingertips. Finally, he broke the cocoon of quiet.

"So, where do we go from here?"

* * *

_The frustrating thing about being an empath is that knowing how someone feels and knowing what they will do with that feeling are two separate things. But now, I know both sides of the equation. And again, the knowing is sweet._

_Instead of a great wasteland, my heart is now but an undiscovered country. All barriers can be broken now. It is only a matter of time._

_Welcome to my family._

_Your Dawn Child_

THE END

* * *

To be continued in Part 3, _Coyote_. Love has a logic all its own. It has been posted and is ready for your reading pleasure. 

A/N: This story is dedicated to my dear Aunt Beuna and Uncle Ed. Beuna passed away a few weeks ago, and I thought of her often while I wrote this. She is now reunited with her beloved Ed, who went home five years ago. I have never seen two people love each other more. They are missed by those who remain behind.

10/19/2005:I just realized that the "Honey" as "lust" bit is very similar to an idea in a fic by K.A.Maples: "Sweet Tooth". This story has a place of honor amongst my favorites. I don't remember if I read that fic before or after I came up with that idea, but they certainly are similar enough. Anyhow, I'd like to give a plug for this fic -- very nice BB/Rae.

And we get _Deeper_ many ways . . . not only do we get deeper into Beast Boy and Raven's story together, we also learn a little more about the Black Rose Underground (just a teasing hint) and a little bit of Raven's backstory . . . the story behind the backstory, that is. Don't worry, I will continue the reveal of all three of these in the next story, _Coyote. _I know that _Twilight Child _and _Deeper_ have are parallel in plot. The next story should veer off that path somewhat.

Let me know what you think. I hope you enjoyed this "issue" of the _Twilight Child_ story arc!

KTHunter

Responses to reviews:

onyx-worrystone: I have enjoyed talking to you about the stories! Thank you for all of your encouragement!

TheSkeet - Thanks for the review. I am glad you enjoyed it.

MintDragon - Glad you liked the love scene. I wanted it to be sweet without being syrupy. I wanted it to be humorous as well. There should be more romance in part 3 -- I felt it was important to get them to it slowly (getting interrupted by Cyborg and Superboy). I hope you like the next one as much. I think my weak spot is action, but I am trying to get better.

TDG3RD - Merci! I am trying to takea break to get my household in order before I slave over the keyboard again, but my brain won't stop buzzing with the next one! This is addictive.

craZy18gurl - I am so glad you are enjoying the stories. I really enjoyed writing them. I think I rewrote the last chapter like 20 times trying to get it just perfect. I hope the next one is even better. I have 5 stories in this arc planned (so far).

LoCaD: Good to hear from you again. I cannot wait to write Part 3 -- my "break" is getting shorter and shorter --

Mad Mauser : As always, I enjoy your reviews! You are very good at reading between the lines!

AngleOZD: I am glad you enjoyed the parallelism. That is a technique that will appear throughout the 5-story arc. I hope I don't wear it out tho.

FallenRose24: Thanks again! I LOVE your fanart!

Wind Lane: I tried to send you an email, but your domain keeps rejecting it. Sorry. Thanks for your kind reviews. If you have any questions about the history that I cover, let me know. I am happy to answer them. I am going to include more author's notes in Part 3 to explain the history a little bit better to those not familiar with the 80s Titans.

Catriana: Yes, I am very fond of the thought of that couple. Perhaps it will happen in the comic? Only time will tell. Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Many thanks: Jefepato, fragile246, and my good friend DeTroyes for your kind reviews!


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